Two for Home

Chapter 1-4

Zach was tidying the campsite after chow when Henry, who shared the tent with him, came over from another tent. “Wanna play some cards, Shorty?” he asked. “The boys thought it might help distract us.”

“Not tonight.” They could all use something to take the bitter taste of defeat from their mouths, but Zach had some things he needed to mull over.

“Probably just as well.” Henry gave him a lopsided grin. “You’re getting too damned good. Maybe someone else’ll be able to win a pot.”

“Gotta give you all that chance.” Zach smiled in spite of the fact he wanted Henry gone.

“And maybe it’ll be me.” Henry waggled his eyebrows.

“Maybe it will.”

“‘Night, Shorty.” Henry finally left.

Zach called quietly after him, “‘Night.”

Zach finished his tasks. He supposed he should try to get some sleep, but he had too much on his mind. He took out his harmonica, sank down cross-legged before his campfire, and began to play softly. He started with “Beautiful Dreamer,” and while the sweet notes filled the night, he recalled an incident that had occurred when Pa had sent him to a school.

“You need to make friends your own age, son. And you need to learn more things than I can teach you. You want to be more than a gunsmith, don’t you?”

Zach didn’t responded to that. He wouldn’t have minded being a gunsmith like Pa, but he knew he didn’t have the skill. To tell the truth, he wasn’t certain what he wanted to do when he grew up.

But he went to school to please Pa. He did well enough with the various subjects because he wanted to make Pa proud, but he didn’t care too much for the boys Pa wanted to be his friends. For some reason, they seemed to enjoy picking on him for the copper tone of his skin, which he’d gotten from his ma, but since they let him alone most of the time, he ignored their hateful words. Maybe that was what drove them to escalate the situation into a fistfight. The comments went from the color of his skin to the fact he was too little, too much like a little girl, and because of that, they threatened to yank off his trousers and put him in a dress.

He never would have let that happen, and in this instance, he fought back.

Pa wasn’t happy when Zach got sent home from school for blacking their eyes and bloodying their noses. When he explained to Pa why he’d done what he had, Pa was even unhappier.

“I don’t understand why they wanted to beat me up, though. And why call me Nellie? They knew my name.”

“Nellie isn’t a girl’s name, not when boys like that use it.”

“What’s it supposed to mean?”

Pa had sighed. “It’s a not nice name for men who…who like men.”

“And who wear a dress?”

“What?”

“They said they wanted to put me in a dress.”

“I never thought I’d have to have this conversation with you.”

“I’m sorry, Pa.”

“Don’t be. This isn’t your fault. Do you remember Galegenoh and Waya?”

Zach thought for a moment, then gave a slow nod. “We knew them from when we lived with Ma’s people.”

“That’s right. Do you also remember they shared a blanket, that they lived together as if they were man and wife?”

“Yes.” Although all he knew was they had been kind to him after his ma died.

“They were very well thought of.” Pa sighed again. “The thing is, what was all right with your ma’s people isn’t all right here in the States. Men who live like that here aren’t looked on with kindness.”

“That doesn’t make those people calling them names very Christian.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then why would they do it? And why would anyone care who I share a blanket with?”

Pa’s face turned red. “Have you…uh…given any thought about that?”

“No.”

“Well, don’t you be in any hurry to do that, you hear me?”

He could see Pa was getting upset about the matter, so he nodded.

“The important thing is you don’t let anyone bully you. Understand?”

Zach might not have understood anyone objecting to who a person loved, but he understood that. “Yes, Pa.”

The last notes of “Beautiful Dreamer” drifted into the night air. He smiled wistfully, tapped the moisture out of his harmonica, and began “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.”

Lieutenant Marriott strolled up to Zach’s campfire, holding his banjo. “Hey there, Shorty. Mind if I join you?”

Zach took the harmonica from his lips and grinned up at him. “Not at all.”

* * * *

After that, when the company set up camp at the end of each day, Zach tagged along with Lieutenant Marriott as he checked picket lines and made sure men and animals were comfortable and fed. And all the men grinned at the sight of Zach trying to match his stride to that of the tall lieutenant’s, and they teased him, but the grins and the teasing were good-natured. And if anyone suspected Zach’s devotion to the tall man was growing into something more than hero worship, well…they never said anything about it.

* * * *

A little less than three weeks later, the early hours of September 17, 1862, saw the start of the bloodiest day in the country’s history as the Army of the Potomac met Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the Battle of Antietam, near Sharpsburg, Maryland.

And Zach earned a new nickname.